John Horgan: SF Car tax, Draper's doozy and pricey petrol

Ever eager to find fresh ways to tax unfortunate visitors, some bright bulbs in San Francisco are taking another look at imposing a fee on cars whose drivers venture into the city's downtown core.

They had considered such a draconian move before and discarded it after they were barraged with protests. This time, it might actually have legs because the announced excuse is "pedestrian safety," an increasingly popular mantra.

San Francisco, as you may know, has had a spate of serious vehicle-pedestrian/bicyclist accidents over the past year or so. There are cries to do something, anything, about the surge.

With money gleaned from a car tax, goes the argument, San Francisco could institute ways to better protect those walking or riding a bike. That sounds high-minded. But be careful what you wish for.

It's already difficult to negotiate some parts of congested San Francisco by auto. Parking, too, is a nightmare -- and an expensive nightmare at that.

So creating yet another reason not to come to the West Coast's Special City might be the final straw for some frustrated folks.

In other words, why bother to endure the city's restrictions when you can do your shopping, dining, moviegoing and other endeavors outside the burg's borders?

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Let's hear it for the Westlake Shopping Center, the Serramonte Shopping Center, the Shops at Tanforan and other convenient retail locales in the northern reaches of San Mateo County.

Just stay out of ultra-unfriendly San Francisco altogether. Avoid it like a plague of locusts. If you must attend a Giants' baseball game out at China Basin, take Caltrain.

But, by and large, spend your hard-earned cash on the Peninsula. Stay out of the City That Doesn't Know How.

The harder and more burdensome San Francisco makes it to enter its confines, the better it ought to be for the rest of us who live and labor on its suburban periphery. At least that's been our theory for awhile now.

Let's be honest here: The plan would protect Silicon Valley, where he lives, from the great unwashed in much of the rest of the Golden State, especially the impoverished Central Valley.

Draper is seeking to qualify a ballot measure that we would vote on sometime in the future. His plan is not new. Others have suggested something similar in the past.

Their argument is that California is too big, too diverse and too complex to be governed effectively as one gigantic whole.

One of Draper's proposed six states would, naturally, be "Silicon Valley," which would include most of the Bay Area and Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. This is prime territory.

The region's wealth would dwarf most of the rest of the state. And, of course, that's an important aspect of the plan: We've got ours, now leave us alone.

Maybe that's not what motivated Draper in the first place, but that would certainly be a clear byproduct of the scheme. Does it have a chance to come to fruition? Probably not.

Banquet update

Tickets for the 6:30 p.m. June 11 Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame induction banquet have been set at $90 each, $55 for retired school employees.

The event, the 24th since 1989 when it was inaugurated by The Times on the occasion of its 100th anniversary, will be presented by the San Mateo County/Silicon Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau in conjunction with the San Mateo County Fair; the 2014 media partner, once again, is the Mercury News.

Ten individuals will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in June. Tickets are available through the Bureau in Burlingame. Call 650-348-7600 for information.

Pricey petrol

Linden Avenue in downtown South San Francisco is not a hotbed of upscale retail outlets.

North of Grand Avenue, Linden is a blue-collar neighborhood, nothing particularly high-priced about it. But Chico's service station belies that notion.

There, regular unleaded gas was selling for $5.04 a gallon earlier this week. That's right. You read that correctly. That figure is about 45 percent higher than the lowest price in town.

John Horgan's column appears Thursday. You can contact him by email at johnhorganmedia@gmail.com.or by regular mail at P.O. Box 117083, Burlingame, CA 94011.